1. A computer readable medium for storing a computer program which, when executed by a processor, provides a data structure of at least one table within a segmented information stream, comprising:
a header portion, including a stream type identifier; and
a payload portion, including a directory and said at least one table;
said directory occupying at least a first segment within said payload portion of said information stream and including, for each of said at least one tables, a respective table description record, said table description record including indicia of table type and number of table segments, said table description record also including a segment bit array field, said segment bit array field including at least one bit corresponding to each of said number of table segments;
said at least one table occupying one or more contiguous segments within said payload portion of said information stream.
2. In an information stream receiver, a method for processing a received information stream formed according to the data structure of claim 1 to determine if a desired table has been received, comprising the steps of:
receiving a directory including a table description record associated with said desired table, said at least one bit within said segment bit array corresponding to each of said number of table segments being set to a first state;
iteratively performing the following steps until each corresponding bit within said segment bit array is set to a second state:
receiving a plurality of segments, including segments associated with said desired table; and
changing to the second state, in response to receiving a segment associated with said desired table, said bit within said segment bit array corresponding to said received segment.
3. The data structure of claim 1, wherein said stream type identifier enables a receiver to disregard a segmented information stream of an unsupported type.
4. The data structure of claim 1, wherein:
said data structure provides a plurality of object tables within remaining payload segments of the segmented information stream.
5. The data structure of claim 1, wherein each table description record includes a segment length field and a number of bytes in table field.
6. The data structure of claim 4, wherein at least one object table is associated with a palette asset and a bit map asset, the palette asset defining colors used to form a bit map image, said bit map asset defining a graphical image.
7. A computer readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processor perform a method of forming the data structure of claim 1, the method comprising:
receiving one or more object tables;
constructing said stream header portion including said stream type identifier;
constructing said stream payload portion including said directory and said one or more tables;
concatenating said header and payload portions to form said segmented information stream.
8. The method of claim 7, further comprising:
converting said segmented information stream into a transport stream.
9. The method of claim 8, further comprising: transmitting said transport stream toward each of a plurality of receivers.
10. The method of claim 2, further comprising:
rejecting a received information stream having a stream type identifier indicative of an unrecognized stream type.
11. The method of claim 2, wherein header portion of said data structure further comprises a version identifier, said method further comprising:
rejecting a received information stream having an identified version number greater than a platform code version number.
12. The method of claim 2, wherein header portion of said data structure further comprises a content identifier, said method further comprising:
replacing at least one previously received table with a presently received table in response to a content identifier indicative of a stream change condition.
13. The method of claim 2, wherein header portion of said data structure further comprises a creation date identifier, said method further comprising:
replacing at least one previously received table with a presently received table in response to the presently received table being associated with a later creation date.
14. The method of claim 2, wherein information streams including previously received tables are periodically received, wherein the header portion of said data structure further comprises at least one of a major version identifier and a minor version identifier, said method further comprising:
rejecting a received information stream having an identified major version number greater than a platform code version number; and
selectively accepting a received information stream having an identified minor version number greater than a platform code version number.
15. The method of claim 2, further comprising:
processing the received information stream to receive a new table in response to said directory comprising a NULL directory.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method for enhancing a virtual examination of an object comprising:
marking voxels in an image dataset as viewed as those voxels are presented on a user display;
identifying voxels not marked as viewed after the completion of an initial examination;
providing a user display identifying all regions of voxels identified which have a size larger than a predetermined threshold.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the user display identifying all regions is a 2D planar projection of a 3D closed object.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the 2D planar projection provides a display of a graphical user interface, wherein when a user selects a region of unviewed voxels, a display of the 3D closed object at the selected region is presented.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the 2D planar projection is a Mercator projection of a lumen shaped object onto a 2D plane.
5. The method of claim 1, wherein the user display identifying all missed regions is a tabular list of the missed regions.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the marking of voxels as viewed is a binary marking representing that the voxel was displayed.
7. The method of claim 1, wherein the marking of voxels as viewed is a multi-level marking corresponding to the level of participation of the voxel when displayed.
8. A method for quantitative measurement of physical parameters of a virtual object comprising placing at least one measuring disk at a location along a centerline of a virtual object, wherein the measuring disk defines a plane aligned perpendicular to the centerline of the object.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one measuring disk has a radius corresponding to the minimum radius of the object at the point of placement and wherein the diameter of the measuring disk represents the diameter of the object.
10. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one measuring disk comprises two measuring disks, wherein the two measuring disks are placed at desired points on the centerline, between which a distance along the centerline is measured.
11. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one measuring disk comprises two measuring disks, wherein the two measuring disks are placed at desired points on the centerline and the plane of the measuring disks and object boundary define a volume to be measured.
12. The method of claim 8, wherein the at least one measuring disk comprises three measuring disks located along the centerline of an object, the three measuring disks defining the endpoints and vertex of an angle to be measured on the object.
13. A method of electronically cleaning a virtual object comprising:
defining a plurality of intensity value ranges representing corresponding material type classifications in the image data;
identifying boundary regions between at least a portion of the material type classifications in the image data;
defining at least one set of intersection conditions which correspond to expected intersection regions;
casting segmentation rays from the boundary regions to detect regions which satisfy any of the at least one set of intersection conditions; and
performing intersection region specific correction on the detected regions.
14. The method of claim 13, further comprising the step of volumetric contrast enhancement.
15. The method of claim 13, wherein the step of identifying boundary regions further comprises:
selecting a material type for segmentation;
identifying seed voxels in the regions of the selected material type; and
applying region growing from the seed voxels until a boundary between the selected material type and another material type is detected.
16. The method of claim 14, wherein the virtual object is a colon and wherein the plurality of material types include air, soft tissue, stool and fluid.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the intersection regions include air-soft tissue, air-stool and air-fluid regions.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein upon detecting an air-soft tissue region, the intersection specific correction includes labeling at least a portion of the voxels of the ray as colon wall and labeling a portion of the voxels of the ray as mucosa.
19. The method of claim 18, wherein upon detecting an air-fluid region, the intersection specific correction includes labeling the voxels of the region as air voxels.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein upon detecting an air-soft tissue region, the intersection specific correction includes labeling at least a portion of the voxels of the ray as colon wall and labeling a portion of the voxels of the ray as mucous.
21. The method of claim 17, wherein upon detecting an air-stool region, the intersection specific correction includes reconstructing the voxels in the region by labeling at least a portion of the stool voxels as fluid voxels and labeling a portion of the voxels of the ray as mucosa.
22. A method for displaying a region of interest of a virtual object with an increased field of view comprising mapping the 3D voxel representation to a 2D display screen using an equal angular spaced projection.
23. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images comprising:
displaying a 3D image of a region;
displaying a moveable slice marker on the 3D image; and
displaying a 2D image corresponding to the position and orientation of the slice marker.
24. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 23 wherein the 2D image is one of a sagital, a coronal, an axial and a centerline-normal cross sectional image.
25. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 23 wherein the slice marker is presented by adjusting the color of the voxels in the 3D image corresponding to the intersection of the corresponding 2D image.
26. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 23 wherein the 2D image has an associated user interface for changing both the slice marker position and the current 2D image.
27. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 23 wherein there are a plurality of selectable 2D images and a corresponding plurality of slice markers.
28. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 27 wherein the plurality of 2D images are selected from the group including sagital, coronal, axial and centerline-normal cross sectional images.
29. A method for coordinating the display of a 3D image and one or more corresponding 2D images of claim 27 further comprising displaying a navigation marker in a displayed 2D image corresponding the current navigation position in the 3D image.